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Star Talk Radio Puts An Eye To Humanity's Future At NYCC

Published Sun, 09 Oct 2016 14:15:33 -0500

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Amanda Gurall writes…

Space geeks lost their minds (politely) today at a panel with some of the stars of Star Talk Radio. Unfortunately Neil deGrasse Tyson was not able to join the group, but we were treated to a great time with some brilliant people. The panel was recorded both audio and video as part of the All-Stars series and will be released in the future. Star Talk Radio is offering a free two week membership to their all-access library for the next two weeks using the code allaccessnycc so check it out! http://www.startalkradio.net

The Panel was made up of:

Dr. Charles Liu: Astrophysicist at the Museum of Natural History, Host
Chuck Nice: Comedian, Host and proud SciFi nerd
Emily Rice: Astrophysicist and creator of Astronomy on Tap and a space fashion blog,
www.startorialist.com
PJ Manney: SciFi writer, Futurist

The discussion was fascinating and fun, I highly recommend you listen or watch it when they release in its entirety. Until then I will share. A few points that were especially interesting.
Dr. Liu asked about the technological advances coming in the next 10-20 years and PJ answered, "I don't write about it but I am fascinated to see what happens in an ethical way, is technological genome alteration. It could do incredible things to stop horrible diseases, give us longevity and a happier humanity, but it has to be done right."

Her biggest fear for the next 20 years? "I am actually afraid of the homogenization of humanity. People will think there is a certain advantage that's preferable, everyone will start to want that, I want to see diseases go away but when we start the designer baby thing you can argue a moral necessity you can also argue you don't want to disregard differences."

Chuck Nice added, "I think that frankly we are already on the precipice of two things. (Holds up phone, lots of jokes about Star Trek) Wearables and medical tech to monitor things like insulin. Talking to your doctor in another location and being treated long distance. There will be a change in world economy; a shift in economies of scale. If we do not get away from this selfish society we will screw ourselves royally. Looking beyond ourselves for the greater good and future of mankind…this is the foundation of our advancement going forward, looking at Comic Con audiences, we are these type of people."

Dr. Liu talked to Dr. Rice about the exciting discovery that European scientists have made in the planet Proxima B. It orbits the closest star to the sun, which is a much lower mass star that's close to earth at the moment. "It's mind blowing to me that 20 years ago we had only an inkling of planets around other stars now there's thousands that we know about and one is right next door."

She continued with excitement, "It's an incredibly exciting thing, we have a planet 4 light years away, there is a real possibility of communicating. But not only is it around a star we don't understand it's an end dwarf star. I study them but we don't understand them at all! These stars are low mass and last forever which is agreat way to think about a complex civilization around another star vs our sun with expiration of 50 million years."

The NYCC audience really is positive and forward thinking as a whole, let's get out there and get more people excited about the future..it doesn't have to end in a robot apocalypse.

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